秋はてて霧のまがきにむすぼほれ
あるかなきかにうつる朝顔
あるかなきかにうつる朝顔
- Roma-ji
-
Aki hatete kiri no magaki ni musubōre
aru ka naki ka ni utsuru asagao - English Translation
-
Autumn at its end,
I cling tangled to the hedge
where the mist hangs low,
and barely there at all, I
fade—this morning-glory flower.
- Meaning
- Autumn over, I hang tangled on the mist-hung hedge, and barely there at all I fade—this morning-glory, which is myself.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Asagao
The lady Asagao answered Genji's "when I first saw" poem with this one. To his letter of deep, veiled meaning, her women urged the inkstone on her, saying that silence would only make him fret, and so she wrote it. You have likened me to the morning-glory, she replies, and like that flower I am now left behind on the mist-hung hedge, autumn over, fading barely-there. Taking up Genji's conceit, she owns her own decline and turns his love aside—a modest poem touched with sorrow. It was written on the blue-gray paper of mourning, in a soft, yielding hand.
"Autumn over" means autumn wholly at its end. "The mist-hung hedge" is the low fence veiled in mist, lending a desolate air. "Tangled" is drooping and downcast, wet with dew and mist. "Barely there at all" is a frailty so slight one cannot tell whether it is there. "Fade" is the flower losing its color, the bloom passing. Taking up his "height of the morning-glory flower," she lays over the faded flower, its bloom gone, her own self declined since leaving the priesthood. Receiving his very figure of the flower and returning it—a poem carrying the fine art of exchange.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Prev Poem
-
Mishi ori no tsuyu wasurarenu asagao no
hana no sakari wa sugi ya shinuramu - Next Poem
-
Itsu no ma ni yomogi ga moto to musubōre
yuki furu sato to areshi kakine zo